WASHINGTON DC- Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander M. Levin (D-MI) today issued the following statement, as prepared for delivery, at a full Committee hearing on impediments to job creation.
“This is a hearing on Impediments to Job Creation. A major impediment to job creation is the failure of the majority in the House to take any specific steps for job creation. In this Committee, they have not marked up a single jobs bill. And when we on the Democratic side introduce a jobs bill like the continuation of the very successful Build America Bonds, there is nothing but stony silence.
Keep in mind that when President Obama took office he faced millions of jobs lost and a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit. In the last year, 1.5 million private sector jobs have been created and an economic recovery is slowly taking hold because of the efforts of this Administration and then Democratic Majority.
Clearly we must take steps to address the deficit. But this must not be used as a maneuver to tear apart the fabric of programs that are important for American families. That is exactly what happens when a Party is gripped by extremism.
This extremism is reflected in H.R. 1, which undermines important education programs like grants and Headstart that represent vital investments in our future growth; law enforcement funding like the COPS program that puts police on our streets; and environmental programs such as the Clean Water Revolving Fund, which ensures we have safe drinking water, and creates jobs.
Attacks on these programs are consistent with, and indeed encouraged by, Republican witness testimony presented today that with the blanket statement: ‘The disease is government spending.’
And by the approach of another witness who said years ago the following in support of privatization of Social Security: ‘In that way, Social Security reform featuring Personal Retirement Accounts doesn’t send just one liberal sacred cow to the slaughterhouse. It sends the whole herd. The greatest long-term effect of reforming Social Security through personal retirement accounts will not be on individuals' retirement savings. It will be on the way they view their relationship to the government, to the economy and to each other.’
If one wanted to talk about a slaughterhouse and Impediments to Jobs Creation, Reserve Chairman Bernanke has predicted that the House Republicans' plan would lose and I quote, ‘a couple of hundred thousand jobs.’
Being very uncomfortable, Republicans have suddenly decided they had better try to frame their efforts by pinning to them the words jobs. Playing games with words won't work; it is not a substitute for real action.
If we want to talk about jobs and American families, real action would include bringing Trade Adjustment Assistance up for a vote on the floor. Now having lapsed, the 2009 program allowed almost 200,000 workers without a job to undertaken retraining as they try to find a job. This legislation was passed by this Committee, but it has shamefully been set aside by House Republicans guided by the rigid ideology that is so rampant within the Houses Republican Conference.
We need to take real action to help put Americans back to work. We welcome this debate and look forward to the testimony today."
